The serial vegan restaurateur in the East Village, Ravi DeRossi and team open a new restaurant on Wednesday, January 7, and — as they’re known to do — they are flipping one of their former spaces. Long Count, an aged-wine and focaccia bar with a menu focused on fermentation, is opening at 155 Avenue B, at East 10th Street, replacing Soda Club, the popular vegan wine bar that previously occupied the address.
Soda Club didn’t close so much as level-up: In April the bar moved to a larger location at 95 Avenue A, after outgrowing its Avenue B footprint. Opened in 2022, Soda Club became a neighborhood staple thanks to its mostly natural wine list, vegan house-made pastas, and late-night energy.
The new Long Count in its former digs is built around the premise that every wine poured by the glass is at least 10 years old. Instead of treating age as something precious or prohibitively expensive, the bar frames older wines as something accessible.
Partner and wine director Drew Brady assembled the wine list; he also oversees Soda Club’s list. Over the past several years, Brady has been tracking down overlooked back vintages from importer cellars and distributor warehouses — wines that aged into something compelling but may be an outlier in more standard by-the-glass programs. The list spans oxidative whites, aged rosés, skin-contact wines, and big reds that have softened and opened up. At Long Count, those bottles aren’t an exception; they’re the point.
”You think of vintage wine — it couldn’t get more intimidating for somebody who’s a casual wine drinker. You’re just like, ‘oh God, I’m out,‘” says Brady. But the difference between fancy vintage wines and, say, collectibles that you’d buy and keep in a cellar for years, is that many are aged by the winemaker before bottling. And these bottles aren’t necessarily stuff that’s going to be sold in an auction, so they’re not crazy expensive. Plus, many were in the U.S. before President Donald Trump’s tariffs spiked the price of imported wines. Once poured, wines are kept fresh using Coravin technology.
The brief food menu complements the wine. Chefs Galen Kennemer (previously of Blanca and One White Street) and Haley Duren (formerly of now-closed Cadence) have built a vegan menu anchored by focaccia and layered with fermented sauces, vinegars, and infused oils. Also look for arancini with truffles, lacto-fermented fries, radicchio salad, and hazelnut cake.
In terms of DeRossi’s streak of vegan restaurants, he says it’s not an issue. In the case of the popular Soda Club, he says, “90 percent of clientele is not vegan: They just eat there and don’t even realize it. We have never pandered to the trend. There is no manifesto on the menu; there are no qualifiers to the experience.”
The narrow room with its long bar stays low-key: candle-lit, vinyl-driven, and intentionally unpolished. Jazz, soul, and familiar records highlight the playlists.
Long Count opens Wednesday through Sunday, from 5 p.m. to midnight.